The Social Responsibility of Artists

In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy said the timeless words: "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." This phrase became the founding concept of the Peace Corps when Kennedy created the service organization in 1961. President Kennedy's message was simple-- the citizens of a healthy democracy must all have a hand in the continuation, cultivation, and improvement of their nation. The purpose of the State is to provide services to the populace that individuals and collectives would be unable - or hard-pressed - to provide otherwise. However, the citizens of the State must not become complacent in their receivership of State services. A populace that has no hand in the administration of the State will quickly become disillusioned, and a cadre of professional politicians will seem very disconnected from the majority of the people. Unfortunately, this can be seen in the considerable political discord that is currently wracking the United States. Although many pundits have argued that the intense political rhetoric that has been seen in the United States since President George W. Bush's reelection (rhetoric which has only intensified since President Obama was elected) is caused by the "24-hour news cycle" and the ever-increasing use of the internet, I believe these are symptoms rather than the underlying cause. The political discord in America is in large part a factor of a populace that is disconnected from the decision making process. Although there is no institutionalized disenfranchisement practiced by the US government any more (at least, not legally), many members of the voting public feel disenfranchised because they have no hand in the production of the services they enjoy. People pay taxes and vote once a year or so, but other than that, they feel no connection to Washington, or even in many cases, their local governments. If we, as a nation, are to reverse this trend of political disillusionment and discord, we must refocus our political culture on "reinfranchising" the millions of Americans who feel as though they have no hand in their government. Although I have never distilled my ideas on this issue to such a degree before writing this essay, I have long struggled with this concept, and how it relates to me, personally.

A couple of years ago, when I was near the end of my undergraduate collegiate career, I was seriously considering joining the Peace Corps, and following President Kennedy's advice. I wanted to "serve my country" in a specific, established way, but I did not (and do not) agree with the purpose of the military, so I saw the Peace Corps as the perfect solution to my desire. I would be able to have a positive influence on people who needed it most, "do good," and serve as an ambassador for the United States of America in other parts of the world. Despite these ideals, when I left school, I decided not to join the Peace Corps and instead devoted my efforts to pursuing a career in acting. Since then, I have struggled with the question of purpose -- not for myself, but how I can marry my desire to achieve personal success in my chosen art form -- performance -- while also "asking what I can do for my country." Essentially, I am facing the age-old question tackled by Chekhov, Sartre, and many others: what is the social responsibility of the artist?

Alright, here's the plan for the rest:

Darwin's Bulldog- Thomas Henry Huxley: THH was essentially a "public intellectual" before the turn of phrase was used. He resolutely defended Darwin's ideas on evolution, and his seminal debate with Samuel Wilberforce led to the wider acceptance of evolution. Essentially, THH used his public persona to reach a wider audience than Darwin was able to with his "Origin of the Species." Although Darwin wrote "Origin" to be accessible to a wide audience, many in England could not read, or did not have enough experience in reading scientific writing to understand Darwin's work. THH spread the word, essentially, by using what amounted to a bully pulpit in a riveting public debate that stole the interest of the public. In the modern era, for better or worse, public intellectuals do not have the same influence that THH had in his day. Fewer people pay attention to public intellectuals, but many many more are interested in the exploits of "celebrities" and the trivia of popular culture. Artists, and perhaps more specifically actors, serve to disseminate ideas and knowledge that would otherwise be unknown to the wider public.

Examples of artists doing what I described: Star Trek The Next Generation, various other science fiction works, Blood Diamond, Amistad, Do the Right Thing, Contact(?), and, older examples, On the Waterfront, Lawrence of Arabia, and even things like Julius Caesar, by Will Shakespeare.

Furthermore, beyond disseminating knowledge and discoveries, the modern artist can give us moral teachings. Many "family movies" have politically correct and non-subversive messages, like "love & friendship" (Toy Story) or "family matters" (The Incredibles). However, there are more subversive messages that have been spread by film and television, like the on-screen kiss between Denzel Washington and Ashley Judd in "The Pelican Brief" or the black presidents in "24." Although Hollywood has often been criticized for either being TOO subversive or not being subversive ENOUGH, it will often surprise us with an unexpected message. We might have a black president because of the messaging from Hollywood over the past decade or so-- that it's ok to have one.

So what should I do about this? Should I keep acting in commercials that push products that I may not agree with on people, with the expectation that it will get me further in my career and be able to do more things that I agree with? What sort of compromises should I be willing to make? How much should I weigh my personal desires with my desire to "do social good?"

Ugh, I don't know. Maybe I'm just selfish. Maybe I'm no better than anyone else. But maybe it doesn't matter.

On manliness

The other day, I read Ernest Hemingway's novel, The Old Man and the Sea, again for the first time in years. I've been on a Hemingway kick recently. I think it has something to do with a thought I've been having for a while now. I don't really know what to do with the thought. I don't know if it matters, really, or if it is even something I should concern myself with at all. I thought that by turning to the great Man's Man of the 20th century I would learn something about this thought that has been plaguing me intermittently for over a year.

To understand this thought, let me back up a bit. Last summer, I was vacationing in Big Bear with my family. The house we were in was a beautiful rustic log-cabin-looking place, built on the side of a mountain and overlooking a valley below. I mean this place was amazing. It had, I found out, been built by a retired fellow who had done some-such and amassed enough wealth to buy the land and the materials. But he hadn't hired a bunch of construction workers, no. He built this place himself! He, his wife, and I guess his dogs and maybe a couple contractors here and there, built an amazing home in the California wilderness, and now fill it with yuppie tourists from the big urban behemoth below.

One evening, I was sitting on the porch overlooking the valley and reading Little House on the Prairie to my cousin. The semi-autobiographical story, as I'm sure you know, is about Laura Ingalls Wilder's family struggling to carve a living out of the harsh life in Indian Territory before it became Oklahoma. Early on the book, Laura's father and mother build a house on the prairie after having travelled for months by wagon. They go on to plant and raise crops, hunt game, and live a nearly self-sufficient life (when they aren't getting their butts saved by American Indians, that is).

I think that's when the thought really hit me, square in the face. Man, I don't know how to do anything! I couldn't assemble a house, even if the zombie apocalypse finally happened and the life of my all-American family (complete with my beautiful, but gritty, model of a wife and my 1.5 children) depended upon it! The extent of my handiness is limited to the simplest of tasks: the other day, the light in the bathroom of our apartment went out. My girlfriend pointed this out to me, and I stood on a chair and fixed it.

Another time the power in half our apartment inexplicably went out. I remembered from somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain that this probably meant we'd tripped a fuse. I went to the circuit breaker and reset the fuse.

One time, I built a table from Ikea.

"Oh, you're so helpful! I'm so glad I have a MAN around," my girlfriend will say to me, from time to time. Maybe after I opened a particularly troublesome jar.

I just laugh to myself, in silent, pathetic derision. How can this be what it means to be a man in America? I don't know how to build anything, or do anything, really, except maybe criticize stuff that other people have created.

I should say that I don't want this to come off as some ill-advised chauvinistic blah blah. I'm not saying it's MAN'S JOB to build houses or to farm. Women are perfectly capable of all this too -- and that fact is deftly delineated in Little House On the Prairie. I'm just viewing this conundrum through the lens of my man-ness. And besides, you ladies are attracted to men who, like, know how to build things and stuff, right? And yet now you're faced with a generation of man-children who know nothing.

Okay, this is kind of turning into a rant. Sorry about that, dear reader. But anyway, all this -- as most things do -- reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's from season 1, so don't expect it to be great or anything. Here's a link to the full episode, if anyone's interested (TAKE THAT HOLLYWOOD!!). Anyway, it's called "When the Bough Breaks," and in it the Enterprise stumbles upon a legendary society, living on a planet that is run by an incredibly advanced super computer. The computer has automated all of the menial tasks that occupy so much of our time. The people in this society use all their free time to devote their lives to the pursuit of happiness and art. Seems like paradise, right? Well, unfortunately, over the generations, everyone has forgotten how to do anything that the super computer is responsible for. And, of course, the computer starts to malfunction. The populace of the super-advanced civilization don't even know how to fix their own computer, because they were all too busy finger painting. Thankfully, Captain Picard and the Enterprise is there to save the day.

I feel like the concept of the episode is happening to me. I'm not worried about our entire civilization, per se, after all there are almost 7 billion of us now, and plenty of us still know how to farm and build houses. But why aren't we teaching this stuff in school anymore? Oh, sure, there's shop class. But that's one class. Just because we all live in cities now doesn't mean we should be ignoring the basic foundations of what makes our civilization function. I think everyone should have at least a rudimentary understanding of farming, carpentry, etc. I think this would produce better adults in our society, too. Certainly more self-sufficient ones.

Sure, we can send our boys to their local Boy Scouts of America troop. But I'd rather not support a racist, sexist, and homophobic organization if I can avoid it. Unless they make delicious chicken.

And so I turn to Ernest Hemingway. Good ol' reliable, realistic, Hemingway. But all he does is remind me that I will never be as good as him. I will never sail out to sea and wage an epic battle with a huge marlin only to have to defend my prize from an onslaught of bloodthirsty sharks (which, by the way, actually did happen to Hemingway). Hell, I'll never take part in the running of the bulls, either. I mean that's played out, right? In this post-modern age where we watch everything "ironically," something like that is too authentic, isn't it?

So where does this leave me? With an amazing girlfriend, I guess. Thankfully I don't have to be good at anything to win her affection. I just have to know how to screw in lightbulbs.

wow, oh wow, oh wow

DOES CAPITALIZATION MATTER????

Well, yes, it does. My title seems so urgent because it's written in all caps. So there.

Alright, I must confess, I've been a pretentious ass about capitalization recently. And probably not in the way you might expect.

First, a little background:

I used to capitalize, like, religiously. Back before we all had smart-phones and tricorders, back when to text someone you had to painstakingly tap out the words with the telephone keypad, I still capitalized religiously, and constantly used proper grammar. I would do stuff like put semicolons between two separate but related clauses; I would use words like 'whom' and phrases like 'in which case.'

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but you get the point. I was being a pretentious ass. That's no way to talk to your friends! Well, I eventually got the point, and learned to be more casual with mah palls. Eventually, i wasn't even capitalizing everything i wrote in my text messages and emails!

sometimes, when i posted things on facebook, i didn't even worry about capitalization there either!

Once, my girlfriend made fun of me for writing like a 13-year-old in my emails and various other digital communiques. And I got to thinking: why had I made a proverbial 180-degree turn? Well, I rationalized, google doesn't care if you capitalize anything. Hell, their brand, "google," isn't even capitalized! Searching the internet isn't case-sensitive, I can't be bothered to capitalize all the comments I make on all the bullshit I care about! And besides, no one likes a douche right? I groan every time I hear someone complaining about the misuse of some-such word or the improper use of, like, the serial comma. (Seriously, I have a friend on facebook who wrote a status decrying people who have stopped using the serial comma correctly).

So, I thought to myself every time I intentionally emailed someone without the proper capitalization, "I'm rebelling, man. I'm rebelling against the oppression of a syntactical CONVENTION, don't you see?!" And in my rebellion, I thought, I was eliciting some sort of greater awareness of... something. My petit-pretentiousness, I guess.

In all this thinking about capitalization, I was forgetting the most important thing any author - or writer of words, really - must consider. His audience. It doesn't matter that I thought all this crazy carp about the meaning of my lack of capitalization. All that matters is how it's going to be read. And I'm probably not going to annoy anyone by using proper grammar.

So, from now on, I'm going to try to use proper capitalization whenever I can.

except when i'm feeling lazy.

Does the Public Intellectual Matter?

Tupac Shakur’s posthumously released song, “Changes” (1998) – perhaps his most thought-provoking and certainly his most uplifting anthem – is a moving indictment against the plight of the urban (black) poor. The song is rife with moving anecdotes and references to political and social issues (“and although it seems heaven sent/ we ain’t ready/ to see a black president” being perhaps the most striking of these). One brief moment in the song, however, strikes me as a hidden (and perhaps unintentional) reference to the purpose and place of the public intellectual in society:

Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares/ One less hungry mouth on the welfare

First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal the brothers

Give 'em guns/ step back and watch 'em kill each other

It's time to fight back/ that's what Huey said

Two shots in the dark now Huey's dead

I got love for my brother/ but we can never go nowhere

Unless we share with each other

This may seem like quite an arcane reference to the question of whether the public intellectual matters. But it all hinges upon how we see Huey P. Newton: was he a public intellectual or simply a social activist? Does this distinction even matter?

Discussing whether the public intellectual matters requires us to arrive at a suitable definition of the term, “public intellectual.” We must also determine whether the term “public intellectual” means anything in its own right, or whether it is just a way for various like-minded academes to self-label themselves. In other words, is the “public intellectual” a type of flower with definable characteristics, or simply a bunch of people who all share the appreciation of flowers?

In her essay, “The Public Intellectual, Service Learning, and Activist Research,”[1] Dr. Ellen Cushman provides a primer of various conceptualizations of the public intellectual. Specifically, two of the definitions put forth by academics that Dr. Cushman discusses have value in our own discussion:

[The modern intellectual’s] goal would be to enact in one’s research an informed concern with specific questions of public value and policy. –Dominick Lacapra (p. 328)

And

A postoccidental intellectual [is] able to think at the intersection of the colonial languages of scholarship and the myriad languages subaltemized and banned from cultures of scholarship through five hundred years of colonialism. –Walter Mignolo (p. 328)

Academic wordiness and douchebaggery aside, both of these conceptions inform a possible definition for the public intellectual – someone who is concerned with the civic good and questions of socio-economic inequality. Dr. Cushman tends to agree with these conceptualizations. She argues that this tendency to quantify the public intellectual within the population of “middle and upper class policy makers, administrators, and professionals” is incorrect[2]. She believes that the public intellectual should be primarily concerned with inequality in society:           

The kind of public intellectuals I have in mind combine their research, teaching, and service efforts in order to address social issues important to community members in under-served neighborhoods. You know these neighborhoods: they’re the ones often located close by universities, just beyond the walls and gates, or down the hill, or over the bridge, or past the tracks. The public in these communities isn’t usually the one scholars have in mind when they try to define the roles of “public” intellectuals. (p. 329)

Dr. Cushman goes on to argue the importance of “service learning”: where enlightened individuals from the bucolic college environment spend time in poor, urban communities. In other words, she shares the foregone assumption that both Lacapra and Mignolo indicated in their conceptualizations of the public intellectual: that he is academically inclined and university-trained, probably holding a Ph.D. in some-such, and full of concern for the unlucky, downtrodden Common Man.

Elanor Townsley, professor of Sociology at Mount Holyoke College, thinks all the kind of elitism evident in Dr. Cushman’s portrayal of the public intellectual is bunk[3], and I am inclined to agree. The public intellectual, she says, is “an important political trope in contemporary U.S. culture and politics[4].” She believes the concept of the public intellectual is nothing more than a “figurative use of words, or a cultural shorthand, that holds, contains, and organizes moral tension about intellectuals and politics in the contemporary United States” (emphasis in original)[5]. She points out that intellectuals who make their work accessible to the masses are nothing new; they just have a new brand. The term “public intellectual” was not in use until some point in the early 1980s, when it began to appear in the pages of the New York Times and other publications. Other terms, such as “intelligentsia” and “literati” have been in use for much longer. What is unique about the public intellectual meme is that it has been used as a nearly universally positive concept. Whether this new “brand identity” for the academic elite was some sort of orchestrated conspiracy, or, more likely, it simply sprouted naturally from growing use is unimportant. What is important is the term has grown into widespread use in the journalistic and academic fields. Furthermore, in the New York Times, from 1987 – 2005, by far the greatest use of the term “public intellectual” appeared in the Book Review Desk[6]— in other words, intellectuals and critics talking about other intellectuals and critics (the second greatest incidence was the editorial desk – again, presumably intellectuals referencing each other). Because the term “public intellectual” has no specific, codified definition, anyone who lays claim to “public intellectualship” is a public intellectual. In short, the definition of a public intellectual is whoever people are calling a public intellectual.

A public intellectual is, therefore, more of a horticultural club than a specific flower. So, by defining who a public intellectual is, where does Huey P. Newton fall under its umbrella? In order to answer this, a bit of Dr. Newton’s personal history must be discussed. Huey P. Newton formed the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in 1966 based upon “revolutionary humanism,”[7] because he felt disenfranchised from mainstream American society (p. 21). Newton and his co-founder, Bobby Seale, were greatly influenced by other revolutionary intellectuals, such as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Malcolm X, and Che Guevara[8]. Newton and Seale were undergraduates in college at this time, but they soon achieved recognition in the media as radical activists. As Newton became embroiled in legal battles such as his trial for the fatal shooting of Oakland Police Department officer John Fey and the murder of 17-year-old prostitute Kathleen Smith, he also began to write and speak politically. Eventually he received a Ph.D. in social philosophy from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1980. Despite all this, Dr. Newton did not seem to consider himself a public intellectual, and I found no evidence that anyone else laid a claim to his status as a public intellectual, either[9]. In fact, upon receiving his Ph.D. in 1980 he said, “My foes have called me bum, hoodlum, criminal. Some have even called me nigger. I imagine now they'll at least have to call me Dr. Nigger[10].” Although Dr. Newton certainly deserved to be called a public intellectual, no one saw fit to invite him to the party. Perhaps if he had not been killed in a senseless act of drug violence and had been a part of the intellectual club for a bit longer, he would have gained more acceptance as a public intellectual, rather than a radical activist.

But if Huey P. Newton was not a public intellectual, where does that leave all those who consider themselves to be public intellectuals? After all, Paul Krugman, Noam Chomsky, Richard Posner, et al. are all considered by various sources to be public intellectuals. They have written on all manner of subjects of public interest. They must all believe in the power of criticism to effect change, otherwise they would not be (or have been) writing in the public domain. And yet there are no Grammy-nominated, top-of-the-charts pop songs written about Krugman, Chomsky, or Posner. Much of their writing is targeted for public consumption, but the public doesn’t seem to be listening. And if someone like Huey P. Newton can have more of a cultural effect than these self-described public intellectuals, what is the point of their efforts?

The answer is the manner in which we think about public intellectuals – if we need to think about them at all. While there are many rubrics we might employ to define the public intellectual, focusing on defining who and what the public intellectual is provides little use beyond intellectual exercise. Stephen Mack, professor of writing at the University of Southern California, is on the right track. Conceptualizing the public intellectual, he says, needs to shift from thinking of “categories and class” to thinking about their “function”:

[O]ur notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public intellectual is—and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title. Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do, irrespective of who happens to be doing it[11].

In other words, the public intellectual doesn’t matter. However, the mission of the public intellectual matters a great deal. Striving for change is the goal of both public intellectuals and ostensibly non-intellectual activists like Huey Newton. Decrying the decline of the public intellectual as Richard Posner has done is simply a waste of time. As Dr. Mack points out, criticizing the status quo and discussing questions of social, moral, and political import is the duty of all citizens in any healthy democracy. Highly trained scholars are often better at this because, as Dr. Mack succinctly observes, it’s their “day job.” These voices certainly deserve our notice, but anyone who has a good idea or a cause to champion also deserves notice. In fact, people like Richard Posner, who whine about the current state of the public intellectual, seem to be revealing an existential angst they must feel about their chosen profession: if people like Huey Newton and other supposed outsiders can effect so much political change, where is the value in old-fashioned scholars like Posner? Mr. Posner needs to remember that the goal of his social criticism is not about mirroring some scholarly ideal, it’s about the message itself.

Perhaps our least intellectual president, Theodore Roosevelt, said it best:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat[12].

If Teddy were alive today, I think he would have valued the efforts of Dr. Huey P. Newton as highly as any intellectual’s. And that’s good enough for me.

---

[1] Cushman, E. (1999). The Public Intellectual, Service Learning, and Activist Research. College English, 61.3, 328-336.

[2] Cushman, E, p. 328.

[3] Townsley, E. (2006). The Public Intellectual Trope in the United States. The American Sociologist, 37.3, 39-66.

[4] Townsley, E, p. 40.

[5] Townsley, E. p. 40.

[6] Townsley, E. p. 46.

[7] Pinn, A.B., Finley, S.C., & Alexander, T. (2009). African American Religious Cultures, Volume 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC.

[8] Pinn, A.B., et al. p. 21.

[9] In my research for this essay, I found that people who considered themselves to be public intellectuals would often say so in their obituaries (whether they had been written by themselves or others). The term “public intellectual” does not appear in reference to Huey P. Newton in the several articles written about his murder in the New York Times, as well as his obituary in the Times and other publications.

[10] Huey P. Newton. (3 Jan 2012). Retrieved 26 Jan 2012, from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Huey_P._Newton

[11] Mack, S. (13 Jan 2012). The Decline of the Public Intellectual [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.stephenmack.com/blog/archives/2012/01/the_decline_of_7.html#more

[12] Roosevelt, T. (23 April 1910). Citizenship in a Republic. Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris.